My Shadow Poem by Cheryl Jacob

My Shadow
In the game of light and dark
My shadow plays a game with me.
Sometimes it walks with me
Sometimes behind me.
What a strange thing is that...
That follows me on my right and on my left.
It treads with me sometimes in ones
And at others in twos.
Is that one of me or many of me,
That I don’t yet know of, I wonder?
It shows me as wide and pudgy when
I’m slim and tall.
Or is it my wish that’s slender
When I’m stout?
Is it my shadow that makes me believe
That there lurks something besides and beside
me in me?
Is it a me or an i that ‘i’ see in my shadow?
Wonder of wonder it is...my shadow.
Whatever it maybe of me...
It tells me that i am i,
And not yet a shade.

There is a shadow that is not me
But that of my mind.
It sees what there is not.
That shade of a shadow
Saunters like a thieve in
Broad light of the sun.
Is it a curse or a spur?
I know not.
I know that i often
Run to hide from that
Shade of a shadow.
Is it a varmint or a purebred that
Find a haven in me
Or is it Gaea or Perses?

Whatever my shadow may be or could have been
It is all of me and some of what i’m not.
My shadow and i play a game
Of appraisal...with unequal measure.
The victor moves with the sun and moon
But the shade haunts the mantle.
Who wins- shade or shadow
Who knows...not i...Do you?
You... who too grapple with your shadow shade or shade shadow,
Can you save either?
Or does neither fit well
With you?
Do you run and hide
Like the flickering me?
Or see the ‘i’ in me
Like the sometimes me?

Who loses- the shade or the shadow?
I know not neither do you.
But the Two have it between them
The one that says I Am That I AM
Wants all.
So does the One who rules the shade.
Does it matter to i who wins my shadow?
It matters to the I AM that I Am and the Shade.
In equal measure.
What tips the scale?
What breaks the tie?
Tis’ the beginning of ‘I’ in me.

Heinous laughter for a multitude of peccadilloes,
Or that long winding road that can make a soul weary?
The scales are indeed not even-Steven.
One strews petals on your path,
The other a thorn or two.
Choose will you? - Shadow or shade.
That is how you’re made.
An easy choice you’d hope to have
But then how would that have worked
For the better for you?

The path will judge the end
...for the shadow and the shade.
One spells demise of the spirit,
The other feeds the rise of the spirit.
Both are found when searched and
Choices made...which one will last for you?
One demands belief in sometimes the outrageous
But the other in often that which is coveted.
One looks at wonders,
While the other at yonder.
Who will you bow to?
Who will you choose? –Shade or Shadow?

The true wonder and living lies
Not in that which rots your soul,
But that which builds your soul.
Is it to be the lion or the dragon for you?
Is it to be the shade or the shadow for me?
I chose to cast my lot in the one who claimed
“I AM that I AM”.
The ‘i’ in ‘me’ remains ‘i’
But its soul is not found in ‘i’.
Search if you will but search it in ‘I AM that I AM’.
The shadow, for me, wins victory over the shade.
It tells me that I am because it is there.

What a strange thing is that...that follows me wherever I go?

January 27- March 17,2011